Moovo raises seed funding from Yuvraj Singh's YouWeCan Ventures and others

Moovo, a Delhi-based on-demand logistics booking platform, has raised seed funding from Yuvraj Singh's YouWeCan Ventures, among other angel investors. The online platform offers on-demand booking services for mini-trucks via a mobile app, a website and call-centers.

"Moovo is a promising startup by a passionate team. By investing in Moovo, we ant to support truck drivers, and help them improve their lives by increasing their income," said YuvrajSingh.

Other leading investors participating in the funding round are Vikram Chachra, Co-founder, Eight Innovate; Pratyush Prasanna, IIT alumnus; Anindya Shuvra Sen, IIT alumnus; Bijay Sahoo, President, HR Head, Reliance Jio; NitinS ethi, Consulting Partner, India-Aeon Hewitt; Sameer Nagpal, COO, Cocubes.com; and the Doshi family, Founders, Doshi Diagnostics.

Co-founded by Abhishek Anand and Anjani Kumar in Dec 2014, Moovo currently processes over a thousand orders per month from consumers, small businesses and online retailers. The startup is collecting a rapidly growing fleet of trucks, complete with verified drivers and claims, to make service available in under 30 minutes. “We aim to simplify the complex business of cargo logistics to the point where just pressing a button on a phone can hail a truck: Button Dabao, Truck Bulao,” says Abhishek.

The company offers standardized and economical pricing, and is focused on providing a reliable and consistent service to its customers. Moovo aims to provide small truck owners direct access to a large pool of customers, boosting revenues and margins, and cutting idle time.

The venture idea was inspired by a co-founder’s personal experience in truck ownership during his college days. While at college, Anjani, one of the co-founders, decided to buy a truck, in order to run a side business and make some extra pocket money. However, he soon realized how difficult generating business for a single truck owner was; every day, his truck sat idle, effectively losing him money. So he learned first-hand that market power in the logistics business comes from size and reach. That’s how Abhishek and Anjani came up with the idea of bringing together a large fleet of small-scale truck owners, on an on-demand tech platform.

Moovo’s growth story

Moovo started the venture with an initial investment of Rs 3 lakh in tech, marketing, referrals and driver induction. Started by two people, its core team now comprises 18 people, from IITs, IIM and IIIT.

“Currently, we have more than 250 driver partners on our platform. Our business model is commission-based. We charge a certain percent of commission on transactions made between user and drivers. Our current annual value of transaction is more than Rs 2 crore. The venture is growing at a rate of 100% month-by-month, and plans to expand to six other cities by the end of this year. Moovo is currently competing with startups such as Blowhorn and The Karrier in Bangalore, as well as The Porter in Mumbai,” says Abhishek.

Recent funding & market size

“We love to fund ventures that are born out of the personal challenges of their founders. Anjani and Abhishek set out to find a business solution for single trucks, and ended up creating an on-demand logistics service for India’s lakhs of truck owners. Moovo is one of the fastest growing players in its category, and we are excited to be part of the Moovo team,” said Vikram Chachra, founder of Eight Capital, and an investor in Moovo.

The market for mini-truck transportation in India is estimated to be around $6 billion annually, of which only about 3-5% is organized. More than 90% of the market is fragmented, with lots of small players (single driver-owners), resulting in a huge mismatch in supply and demand.

“The entire logistics market is upwards of $130 billion. With the use of technology and smart algorithms, Moovo intends to revolutionize the logistics market in India. We want to disrupt the logistics sector, just like Ola and Uber disrupted the taxi market,” says Abhishek.

Competitive edge over others

Moovo’s target audience is online retailers, e-commerce companies, businesses, manufactures, retailers, relocation market and anyone else moving bulky items within the city. It claims to have an almost 100% retention rate when it comes to customers.

The main USPs of Moovo are convenience in booking, and guaranteed delivery of vehicle on time, which are major issues in the current market. Also, customers can track their goods in real time. These are the services, the company claims, that give them a competitive advantage.

With many transporters having small fleet size, the logistic market is very unorganized. Prices vary every 1-2 km. “We are going to tap into these small fleet owners, and standardize the prices by increasing the number of trips our partner drivers get,” says Abhishek.